I was travelling a lot last week, and so had plenty of time to think about better ways I could be spending my time. Whenever I’ve travelled recently, there hasn’t been many empty seats on flights, so a lot of people are probably in the same position as me.
There are obviously better ways to meet with people now – video conferencing at the desk, audio conferencing for multiple people, telepresence for a real ‘wow’ or just a simple phone call, and yet we persist in travelling.
Is this because we aren’t confident in the technology? For simple point to point phone calls, this seems unlikely as this is a very reliable infrastructure, and for conference calls there are good solutions to make these easy
Is it because we haven’t built up the right protocols for these online meetings? This is highly likely given the almost chaotic nature of large conference calls.
Is this because we haven’t built up the knowledge or skills to deliver our messages without body language? Again, highly likely – how many of us have had some form or speech training to make sure we can be effective in remote communication.
Or is it simply that travelling is the new work culture fallacy. The old fashioned view that being in the office was the way to make yourself seem busy, important and hard-working has now been superseded by people thinking that if they travel then they are seen to be busy, important and hard-working.
More to come on this